Tome of Battle classes without the extras

[Plane Sailing]

I still want to get the book for the maneuvers and stances. Throw away the broken base classes, give the fighter some more neat abilities to pick up with feats ... boom, you've got a better fighter without creating munchkined out classes to make the guy that played a fighter feel like an idiot for doing so.

Before the previews started appearing, I thought that was what it was going to be... I think I'd be more likely to allow them as options for all classes to take, based upon feats or something (although exactly how I'd arrange that I don't know... I've not actually got the book and I'm currently running a sci-fi campaign so the point is moot for quite a long while for me!

Cheers

 

[blargney the second]

The warblade mainly has access to maneuvers and stances where you have to trade a penalty in one area for a bonus in another. One stance gives +2 to attack for -2 to AC; that's painful for a class with medium armour. I think all of the strikes are standard actions, so you give up the ability to do a full round of attacks; that's painful when someone has cast haste on you. That means they also don't work with feats like Spring Attack. A lot of warblade maneuvers and stances require heavy investment in a given skill that may otherwise not be useful to a melee character, like Concentration or even Diplomacy for a hack and slash type.

Their maneuvers are not something for nothing. They help in certain circumstances that may or may not arise over the course of a given day.
-blarg

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think I'd be more likely to allow them as options for all classes to take, based upon feats or something (although exactly how I'd arrange that I don't know...

There's feats for that in the book. Each feat gives you a maneuver. You still have to get the prerequisites (which mainly means that you need a sufficient character level, and that you can't usually get a high-level maneuver before you get some lower-level ones).

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah there is a feat that allows you to learn maneuvers, but as Niles pointed out, it's not worth it to strip away the maneuvers just because you find the system complex. I mean that's like taking away a Binder's binding power or a True-namer's skill at learning true names! It just doesn't make sense.